Enduring diplomat

Urmas Paet must be a good friend to have. When, two years ago, one of his associates asked him to promote a skydiving club by making a parachute jump, Estonia’s foreign minister, despite obvious reservations, agreed. Granted, he had a professional parachutist with him to ensure the chute opened and the landing was smooth – but the 300-kilometre-per-hour freefall must still have been daunting. “That was my first and last [jump],” says Paet, though adding quickly, “but never say never.”

“Never say never” is a highly appropriate caveat for the minister: it shows he is prepared for the unpredictable. Considering the trajectory of Paet’s career path – from political reporter to foreign minister, now the second longest-serving in Europe, how could it be otherwise? In his eighth year as foreign minister and riding the wave of domestic approval, the bespectacled diplomat seems unstoppable.

“He never gives out bad news, and he avoids conflict,” says an Estonian colleague when asked the secret of Paet’s popularity. Knowing all the local journalists and media chiefs is also an advantage, the result of eight years as a journalist, starting at Estonian Radio during high school and culminating at Postimees, a mainstream daily and one of Estonia’s most popular newspapers.

Then he had the sort of insight that transforms people’s lives. “I felt that, well, I spoke with politicians and officials as a journalist, but I didn’t get 100% how the whole system really functions,” he told European Voice. “Then one day I just decided to look at my subject from the inside, to see how it really works.” So Paet joined the Reform Party, a liberal group founded by current European Commission vice-president Siim Kallas: it has produced such stalwarts as finance minister Jürgen Ligi and, above all, Andrus Ansip, Estonia’s prime minister for the past seven years.

Paet became a party adviser in 1999, and, later that year, chief administrator in Nömme, a quiet district in south Tallinn known for its pine groves and elegant homes. The switch to national politics came four years later, after the Reform Party board – true to the peculiar Estonian predisposition to prefer youth over experience – recommended the then 28-year-old to take over the culture ministry. Although in the post for only two years, Paet recalls the experience with pride, given that he helped launch a new theatre, Theatre NO99, and began the revival of the nation’s long-dormant film industry.

In the spring of 2005, a crisis in the governing coalition triggered a shake-up, forcing the resignation of the then-foreign minister, Kristiina Ojuland (now an MEP). Paet, despite his heavily accented English, was asked to fill the vacancy. Estonia had just joined NATO and the EU the previous year, so it seemed that the ‘heavy-lifting’ in foreign affairs was in the past.

Reality, however, had unkind surprises in store. In 2007, after the government decided to relocate a Second World War monument and grave from central Tallinn to a military cemetery, all hell erupted, at home and abroad. Rioting, triggered by the country’s large ethnic- Russian population, which holds the grave as sacrosanct, broke out in Tallinn, the embassy in Moscow was surrounded by rabid nationalists, and later, in a watershed event, the websites of the Estonian government, media, and bank came under co-ordinated cyber-attack. Paet had probably never had to work so hard in his life. “For me, the biggest worry was what was going on in Moscow,” he recalls. “It was worrying how far the Russian authorities let [protesters] go, and at that time there was a clear risk that they really would attack the embassy.”

In the end, Estonia emerged stronger and wiser, and as a result is now home to one of NATO’s cyber-defence institutes. Ties with Russia, however, still bear the scars of that confrontation. “On a large scale, our relations with Russia are normal. All pragmatic things function well. But at the highest political level, I should say that there is a clear lack of communication,” said Paet. “I’ve invited [Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov] in writing, orally, and the answer always is, ‘The atmosphere is not right yet’.”

Paet, who also speaks Russian and German, says his second great challenge was last year’s hostage crisis. Seven Estonian cyclists were kidnapped by fringe nationalists near the Syria-Lebanese border, sparking a four-month ordeal involving him in multiple trips to the Middle East and reassuring anguished family members in Estonia. The minister refuses to comment on whether a ransom was paid, but Estonians have never really pressed him on the matter. When the seven returned home in July 2011, after 113 days in captivity, Paet’s popularity soared.

In the broad scheme of things, Paet believes that Estonia packs more weight internationally than its diminutive size would suggest. “If you look at our achievements in the United Nations, in EU and NATO, relations with other countries in the region, I think that [our] stability and trustworthy politics count more and more in the international arena,” he says. Like nearly every other EU minister, Paet is endlessly grappling with its problems. He is quick to stress that, beyond the fiscal aspects, the EU’s machinery functions well. He says that Europeans, like Estonians, who remember life on the other side of the Iron Curtain, should be grateful for the liberties, the free movement of goods and persons that everyone can enjoy.

But when it comes to the tighter political integration that a new EU treaty convention may prescribe, Paet is cautious. “This idea itself would be wise and reasonable, but the fact is that European society simply is not ready for this. The political leadership should be very careful about the timing of [such] proposals…. because it can create even more disappointment,” he says. In the same breath, he adds that it would be only logical for the 17 eurozone countries to merge their institutions since the very essence of a common currency seems to necessitate this.

True to his roots, Paet remains accessible to journalists and spends several hours a week giving interviews. He recently took up tennis on top of a typical Estonian fondness for cross-country skiing and cycling, and enjoys going to the theatre and watching movies. Although his boss, Prime Minister Ansip, has hinted that he might step aside after national elections in 2015, Paet, who is married and has two daughters, is apparently not looking for a step up. “Yeah, I’ve been here for seven and a half years if you look at the calendar, but I don’t feel I’ve been here [that long]. It’s still very interesting for me,” he says. One can almost hear him thinking: never say never.